


Stronger Together

by Heather927



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Pre-Canon, Enemies to Friends, F/F, Gem War, Not Canon Compliant, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-26
Updated: 2018-09-24
Packaged: 2018-10-24 07:32:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,999
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10737036
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Heather927/pseuds/Heather927
Summary: There had never been another gem like Garnet. Normally, that would be more than enough to grant her a death sentence, but the Homeworld needed gems like her. Powerful. Strong. Expendable. And as long as they never found out the truth about who she was (who she had been), she was safe.But a secret like that cannot be kept forever, and when she's found out there's only one group she can turn to - the enemy who wants her shattered.





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> This is an AU of 'what would have happened if Ruby and Sapphire's first fusion had been in private?' or 'what if Garnet had fought for the Homeworld first?'. I've only started watching SU recently, but I'm a binge-watcher by nature, so I'm fairly familiar with the lore. If I do write something inaccurate (bearing in mind this is an AU) please let me know, although I am deliberately taking liberties with the timeline.
> 
> Very short first chapter, more summing up how the fusion happened in this universe, and a little bit of what came after. We'll get to the actual plot soon.

Sapphire was late. That wasn't like her.

 _Probably stuck in a meeting,_ Ruby mused, and started to pace the little clearing by the outside wall they used for these - well whatever they were. The future,  _their future,_ was not a topic either of them liked to talk about, although Sapphire at least had to know what would happen. How it would end, because as much as Ruby liked to focus on the present she wasn't stupid. A gem of her standing could never be with one like Sapphire forever. This would end, it would likely end with her own death (Sapphire would be safe, she was too important to be harmed), and it would be well worth every second they spent together.

Their association, because Ruby would never dare think 'relationship' except in those wistful last moments before they separated every night, had started when she was assigned as a bodyguard to Sapphire, one of four. An unimportant, no-name bodyguard, who Sapphire had somehow favoured beyond Ruby's wildest dreams. They spent almost every moment of their time together, unless Sapphire was in a special meeting like she was now, but it was only in the darkness of the night where nobody else could see that they could hold each other.

A noise had Ruby turning, and for a moment her view was obscured with smoke. Oh. Sheepish, she stamped out the flames, and then nearly fell over as someone -  _Sapphire! -_ flew out of the smoke to grab her in a hug.

"Saph! Finally! I've missed -" Sapphire pulled back, away from Ruby's warm hold and kisses, and Ruby cut herself off, startled. "Saph-" she began tentatively, and only then realised that Sapphire wasn't just pulling back, she was pulling Ruby back.

"We have to go. Now. I'm sorry, I only saw it when I was in the meeting, and I couldn't get a message to you any other way."

"Saw what? Sapphire. What's going on?" As baffled as she was, Ruby trusted Sapphire, and let the other gem tug her away from their usual meeting spot. "Do they know about us?" she asked, and her voice dropped to a shaky whisper.

"It's not them. It's  _them_. The Crystal Gems are attacking tonight. I thought they were going north before, but they're not, they're attacking from the east."

"Have you told Blue Diamond?" Ruby asked.

"I couldn't. If they'd seen you here, where you're not supposed to be..." Sapphire tailed off, shaking her head.

There was a noise, and the wall Ruby had been beside just a moment ago exploded inwards, and there stood -

A Pearl. Perhaps even  _the_ Pearl, Rose Quartz's personal Pearl. 

And as Sapphire stared in horror, Ruby grabbed her arm and pulled her into a dead run, not daring to look back to see if the Pearl noticed them.

***

 

Ruby wished more than anything that she was bigger, stronger. Faster. Someone who could truly protect Sapphire, the sort of gem Sapphire truly deserved. Instead they barely made it halfway back to the base before there was a whistle of air behind them and Sapphire pushed her out of the way. The spear smashed into the ground exactly where Ruby had been a moment ago and Ruby stared at it in horror as she pulled herself to her feet. After a few seconds the spear disappeared, and when Ruby looked up it was to see the Pearl advancing on them.

No, not on them. On Sapphire. Of course, Sapphire. With her poofed, the Homeworld would be in serious danger.

"Oh don't look at me like that," the Pearl hefted her spear, and aimed it at Sapphire's frozen form. "This won't be permanent, you know."

_No._

Ruby was charging before she had time to think. Sapphire's eye widened from where it was peeked out from her under fringe, and she shook her head, mouthing,  _run_. But the spear was already flying through the air and there was nothing in the galaxy that could have stopped Ruby from putting herself between it and Sapphire.

Somehow she made it there fast enough to push Sapphire out of the way. They smacked into a wall of rock, then the ground, landing with a painful thud. Ruby scrambled to her feet again, and looked up to meet the Pearl's astonished gaze.

"Back off," she warned. "I'll shatter you before I let you touch her."

The Pearl's eyes widened and the spear disappeared from her grip. For a moment Ruby thought the threat had actually worked, that her shivering and the shrillness of her voice had not given her away, but no. There was a rumble above, and Ruby turned to see the rock wall, arcing up higher than she could see, shudder, a crack from where they had hit it deepening and chunks of rock splintering away.

_No._

Sapphire moaned from where she still lay. The Pearl cried out a warning and started to run forward, as if to help them. The rock fell. Ruby grabbed Sapphire's hand and tried to shield her with her body.

Their gems touched.

 

When they woke sometime later, the Pearl was gone and so were they. Garnet wasn't crushed. She wasn't trapped even, not when she could easily punch her way out, to the shocked silence of the other gems gathered around.

 _What happened? I_ \- we  _\- were crushed?_

_Ruby!_

_Sapphire! Where -_

_It's alright._

_I don't understand._

_Stay calm, Ruby. It's alright._

It wasn't. Ruby could feel Sapphire's fear and confusion just as keenly as she could feel her own. And there was another, too. Relief that they were okay, a love that burned brighter than any other emotion either of them had. Strength that came as much from temper as temperance. 

"What is that?" someone said - an Amethyst neither of them recognised. She didn't sound disgusted or horrified, but in awe. "Who - who are you?"

They stood up, and the amethysts hurried to raise their weapons.

"I am Garnet," they said. And when they said it, so it was.

***

 

Had the Amethysts poofed her, it would have been all over. If they'd seen the two gems from one body, they would have put it together - and ripped them apart. But to the Homeworld gems, fusion meant tool. The idea that it could be anything else, that it could be between two gems of different types, was unthinkable. And so they didn't think of it. It took all of Sapphire's diplomacy to talk their way up to Blue Diamond, but after that it didn't take that long to argue their case. The Homeworld needed stronger gems, especially with the way the war was going. They were useful, and that was something they could use.

The days blurred as they settled back in. Sapphire was honoured with a speech, the Pearl who 'killed' her condemned for the "senseless shattering of Her Clarity". Ruby's assumed death went without comment, but if the Rubies on the base were quieter than normal, and disappeared together for a few hours the first day after their fusion, Garnet didn't think anyone else noticed. She spent most of her time in the room she had been allocated - smaller than Sapphire's personal chambers, and the barracks the Rubies shared, but only a little cramped for her size - and hid away from the other gems.

The fear of being discovered kept her solitary, but so did their mistakes. It was a learning experience, fusing, and it was down as much to Ruby's prior experience as Sapphire's future vision that kept them from walking into doors and falling over from their unexpectedly long stride. They were too tall and too bulky, but worst was that they saw too much. Two eyes was too much on some days, and the flashes of what-could-come gave them a constant headache. Some days Sapphire would shrink into the very depths of Garnet to try and escape the sheer amount of visual input, and others Ruby would curl into herself to disappear in their head because she knew too much and not enough of the future at the same time. 

 _How do you stand it?_ they wondered, with awe. They wore a mask by joint agreement, hiding the times when one eye was closed, and dimming the world around them until it was bearable. Despite that, despite everything - the strangeness, the secrecy, the lies - they could agree on one thing: it felt right. Their body was so large, so strong, their movements so fluid. And they were unique. Neither of them had ever been unique before - even Sapphire, as powerful as she was, was not one of a kind - and this gave them the freedom to change at will. Other gems muttered when they emerged with completely different colours, but they kept their silence. There were no other Garnets, after all, so none could tell them their role, or that they were doing it wrong.

But they had a role still, and that was the role of a warrior. 


	2. Someone Entirely New

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well that was a longer wait than I'd expected. I figure there's going to be twenty chapters in this, including an epilogue, although that could easily change. I'll probably be editing the prologue at some point as it doesn't completely tie in anymore, but for now please just ignore the slight overlap at the end.

_What am I?_

Garnet didn't have an answer. She sat in the same hall three dozen other gems sat, but unlike them she was alone, or rather appeared to be. She sat in dead silence, paying little attention to the gems talking around her, her mind instead focused on the future.

The future had...changed.

Sapphire was used to seeing what was to come, but only in a structured way, a single path leading forwards, no way off and no way out. Her fate always known and never changing. And that had been a comfort, always knowing what her fate would be. She had never thought it a weakness to not see other paths, because the path she saw was always the one that happened. It had only stopped being a comfort when the only future she could see was one that involved a shattered red gem. That had been unacceptable, and she hadn't cared that there was no other option, no other way forward - no hope of saving her. In that moment she had known without a shadow of a doubt that if the only potential future was one without Ruby, it would have to be one without her, too.

Even now, so much taller and stronger than she (they) had ever been, the idea of how close Ruby had been to shattering made her (their - Garnet's) fists clench. She had  _seen_  it happen, had felt the pain and horror and loss and had known that there was no way out even when she ran to save her. And she didn't know why it hadn't. 

_What's the point of being able to see the future, when you can't say it?_

It wasn't her voice, it wasn't Ruby's voice. It was the other that was so familiar yet so different. And it was right, as usual. Somehow it had worked, they had created something far beyond what either could have ever possibility imagined. One little choice, and her world had shifted on its axis, nothing was the same, everything was new. Now there were a hundred different paths in the future, each splitting off in every direction, an infinite web of possibility. And it  _terrified_ her.

In some, they were shattered by the Crystal Gems. In others, by the homeworld after being discovered. The idea sickened all three of them, Sapphire and Ruby both horrified at the idea of the other being harmed, and Garnet equally protective of them both. Numerous paths, numerous options, and few led to a long, happy life. Those few were always the same - lives lived in secrecy, the swift destruction of the Crystal Gems giving them the opportunity to safely slip away, willingly exiled from their home never to return. It would almost have been better if she knew which path they would go down, whether bad or good at least then they would have known. Sapphire was not used to not knowing.

They would do it without pause if that's what kept them safe. Neither knew quite what it was they had created, but Garnet knew she would never give it up without a fight, and something about being like this, the warm security of Garnet and the soft meshing of their minds - it was like they had been cured of a sickness they didn't even know they had.

Even so, it was difficult. It had been worse at first. Three eyes saw too much for either of them. The present was too sharp and too real, and the future both too indistinct and too clear. Seeing was a struggle,  _walking_ was a struggle. When they first stood up they had fallen almost immediately, which, thankfully, the surrounding gems had put down to having been hit over the head by a crumbling wall. Since then, they had practised whenever they had the opportunity, retraining their body to walk and see and act - always act - until they could do it in front of the others without the constant fear of discovery.

Had a single gem in the base - for Garnet's appearance had spread like wildfire - even conceived of the possibility of two different gems fusing, they would have been done for. But it was impossible, or at least should have been so. She didn't understand why it wasn't, none of them did. Fusion was a tool, used to make weak, expendable gems stronger, but only with the same type of gem, that was how it worked. The idea that this could happen between different types, to create something different, something new, was...almost unthinkable. A blasphemy against the Diamond Authority, the very possibility going against all they had been taught.

And yet here they sat, their very existence a blatant disregard for all that was true. The Diamonds would  _not_ be happy if they found out - when they found out, as they almost certainly would, and that  _certainty_ made Ruby cringe just as much as Sapphire flinched away from the  _almost_. It was too much and not enough at the same time, and Garnet was just glad her eyes were covered because her expression would have given away the internal conflict of multiple minds in one body.

 _Steady there,_ she instructed her two halves.  _Easy. We've got this, together_. 

***

"Uh. Hey, Garnet, right?"

She looked up at the Jasper standing by her table. Most of the other gems in the room had already left, and after a moment she saw why. Ah, yes. The war. She rose and the Jasper took an immediate step back.

"Her Radiance has put you with us," the Jasper said, gesturing to a near-identical throng clustered at the back of the room. "Guess she thinks you're good enough to be."

She  _looked_ at her, not deigning that with a reply, and left. The Jaspers parted for her, and she heard a whispered conversation rise the moment they thought she was out of earshot. It was only a short walk to the rendezvous point, and she knew the way. She also knew the plan - they were searching for a lone Crystal Gem who was hiding in a nearby area, and were hoping to find her before her comrades showed up to help her escape - and spent most of the brief preparation time they had attempting to calm her two halves. Ruby was full of pent-up apprehension, that fear that showed itself in aggression. Sapphire was just nervous, attempting to see what was going on and quietly freaking out when she wasn't able to. 

Sapphire had never fought before, and nor had Garnet. Even Ruby was hardly a veteran - most of her work was, after all, guarding a gem who stayed well away from violence. This time, she was on the front lines, so to speak, in a cluster of battle-hardened Jaspers searching for a group of Crystal Gems rumoured to be somewhere in the area. And of all the areas a gem could pick to hide, this was definitely a scenic one - the vast jungle probably lending necessary camouflage the desert flats would not have.  Neither gem had had the chance to appreciate the wildlife around them before, and now they had the chance Garnet gleefully made the most of it. She slowed down, taking her time and let the others walk on ahead so she could enjoy herself properly.

Trees obscured the bright sunlight, that was the first thing she noticed. It shaded the ground, creating a delicate pattern amidst the bramble and dirt where the light pierced through. It wasn't like that on homeworld, or on the other conquered planets they had been to before. There, there were no trees, no grass, no animals or streams. Just the ground torn open for as many kindergartens as were possible to fit in it, to be immediately abandoned after the fact, lifeless and desolate. This was something else, and she was the perfect height to peer around a tree to see a little bird nest, hungry chicks cheeping immediately as they caught sight of her.

"It's alright," Garnet said soothingly. She nearly reached out a finger to touch one of the birds, but thought better of it, and instead lightly touched the side of the nest. "I'm not going to hurt you." She watched them for a few moments in the hope of seeing the mother bird return and feed them - according to some of the other rubies, that was what these creatures did, anyway - then moved on when nothing happened, having no wish to further disturb the birds or lead the Jaspers to such an innocent, defenceless prey.

Besides, there was work to be done, too. She didn't know who she was hunting for, exactly, or what it was they had done. But every step she walked with her third eye wide open she could see the paths branching out, options closing as she ignored potential choices, until  _\- yes_.

A flicker in the corner of her second eye, and she didn't have to turn to know which path she was walking down now. The future bloomed before her, and ( _wait for it, Ruby, easy_ )

She turned, caught the axe thrown at her head and crushed it her hand, transforming her fists to gloves a second later.

The Crystal Gem stared at her, frozen. She was a strange looking gem, with an odd cracking pattern of silver over her body, her gem an unidentifiable dark grey.  _Defective_ , Garnet thought, and a mixture of pity and ashamed fellowship stirred in her chest, staying her hand when she could have crushed the being into dust.

Then a Pearl leaped lightly in front of the gem, spear raised to fight and Garnet felt a furious recognition and no pang of guilt when she ripped the spear from the Pearl's hands and sent it crashing into a tree.

This Pearl. Fear was eclipsed with anger, and she punched the other gem in the face twice, not caring when she rolled out of the way, summoned another weapon and jabbed it at her. It stung when it made contact, and Garnet was too slow, too clumsy, to avoid the blow.

"You," she snarled, and came at her again. Pearl jumped away, just, and scrambled to summon another weapon. She managed just in time for Garnet to punch it into nothingness, and watching the Pearl's face pale as she stumbled back was nothing short of delightful. She had attacked Ruby, had nearly poofed Sapphire, had nearly shattered them both.

She was also the reason for Garnet's existence, but she didn't know whether to be grateful or furious for that.

The Pearl twirled another weapon and stepped to attack. Garnet moved to block, but caught herself in time, following her third eye through to ignore the feint and block the real blow with a second spear. She whirled it away, poofed her gloves and grabbed both of the Pearl's spears, snapping them in half and shoving the other gem into a tree.

She hit the ground with a thud and Garnet stalked over to her, looming menacingly. She wasn't quite sure what she was supposed to do with the Pearl - if this truly was Rose Quartz's servant then surely Blue Diamond would want to interrogate her, but Garnet wasn't sure she could allow that. Shattering would be a mercy, but the idea of it brought her up short. She had never killed before, neither of them had.

She took a step closer, still unsure what she was going to do, and then she was flying, landing with a solid thump several feet away. Garnet pulled herself up quickly, but not so fast that she managed to avoid the second blow. It caught her on the side, and she rolled over, coming to her feet to face the Bismuth standing before her.

The new gem smiled. "Well hey there," she said easily, and raised her hands, a pair of hammers. "Hope you don't mind me dropping in."

Garnet didn't bother with a response and attacked again, secure in the knowledge that the Jaspers were on their way back. Nearby, the defective gem was helping the Pearl to her feet, wrapping an arm round her shoulders when she stumbled.

Garnet punched Bismuth again, but she blocked it, catching her fist with her weapon and Garnet felt a dull burn in the side. She looked and the hammers were glowing red with what she assumed was heat. For a moment she panicked, waiting for it to burn but it stayed a gentle, soothing warmth. From Bismuth's expression she hadn't expected as such, and Garnet took the opportunity to rip herself free and shove the other gem away.

"Sure haven't seen one like you before," Bismuth panted as they half-circled each other warily. Every step Garnet took, she was matched, until her movements took her too close to the Pearl and the defect, then Bismuth moved to block her, forcing Garnet back a step.

"There are no others like me," Garnet told her, and for a moment wondered if she'd said too much. Bismuth blinked at her, then smiled widely, almost mockingly, again.

"That what the Diamonds are telling you? They don't care about you, you know that. You're nothing to them. They'll use you, take everything you have and abandon you at a whim."

"Rose Quartz is no better." Bismuth opened her mouth to say something else, then paused. In the distance they could both hear the Jaspers nearly back and Garnet saw the future split two ways.

In one lay three gems shattered and Rose Quartz brought to her knees. She would return to homeworld, free of all this, and could live alone together, peaceful and well for the rest of her existence. And this world would be gone. Those birds would be gone, the trees and the creatures that lived here who probably also wanted to live peacefully and well for the rest of  _their_ existences, gone. Despite everything, despite the war being the only thing keeping her there, dangerously close to the Diamonds, she stepped back and away, letting the three flee into the distance. The other path was shrouded in shadow, but little by little she thought she could see a light at the end of it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fight scenes are *hard*, guys. Points to anyone who can guess who the 'defective' gem is - they have been mentioned in the show before, but briefly.
> 
> Constructive criticism is always appreciated!


	3. Flexibility, Love and Trust

It took Garnet a while to notice, but as the battles went by she started to pick up a running theme - Bismuth.

Everywhere she fought, she was there. The moment she poofed the first gem in battle, or sometimes even just arrived, the large gem barrelled up out of nowhere to attack her. She didn’t know why. Fear, perhaps, although the idea of making other gems afraid was still a novel, uncomfortable one. Or wounded pride at having been bested before, and a wish to have a successful rematch.

She poofed another gem and moved to the side easily, anticipating Bismuth’s appearance. The other rolled to her feet with a snarl and attacked with her hammers. One hand holding the just-poofed gem protectively, Garnet blocked, then dropped low to kick Bismuth’s legs out from under her. She knew it would work before she had even started to move, and let the tree of future possibilities spread out in a web around her, until she could see what was to come better than she could see what was currently happening. Time ceased to be as branch after branch disappeared as the world slowly caught up, and a single path slowly began to take shape. She followed it to its end, changing it as need be until Bismuth lay on the ground, temporarily stunned.

“You cannot defeat me,” Garnet told her, and brought her fists down.

Two poofed gems in hand, she looked around for another opponent. Most of the crystal gems seemed to be avoiding her, and she found she couldn’t really blame them. She took the brief respite to examine the gems she held. They were a little tarnished but otherwise whole. Garnet had seen the remains of gems crushed underfoot during battle too many times, sometimes intentionally sometimes not, and now took care to pick up her little victims and keep them safe until the end. The first time she had done that she’d been mobbed by twelve Crystal Gems crying out that the Homeworld was kidnapping their friends - which gave her a dozen more to carry around until the end of the battle. She left them in clusters together when the Crystal Gems retreated, as they always did. A few times she had seen a gem she’d fought previously in battle catch her eye and promptly avoid her, so it was clearly working.

It was the first time she’d collected Bismuth though, and she laughed aloud at the vision of the gem’s reaction when she came back. And then another gem appeared, and she returned to battle.

***

"This is ridiculous," Garnet said as calmly as she could given the circumstances, except it was Sapphire's voice and the person she was talking to was using the same mouth. Alone in a medium sized storage room, she paced anxiously, the two personalities at war within her. "You need to calm down, Ruby. You're not thinking clearly."

"Why am I always the one who has to calm down?" Ruby demanded. "Maybe you should be calming up."

"That doesn't even make sense."

"You know what I mean! Just because you're smarter than me doesn't mean you're always right!"

Whatever Sapphire was thinking about saying next died on their lips. Before she could say something else, Ruby continued, furiously self-deprecating in the way only she could be.

"That Agate didn't know what she was talking about, even I could see that. She's an idiot and she's going to get you killed."

"Get us killed," Sapphire corrected. "And that doesn't mean you should threaten her. You're better than that, we're-"

"Well apparently I'm not anywhere near as good as you seem to think I am," Ruby snapped, and that was, it seemed, the last straw.

The two gems fell apart in anger, and it fizzled out the moment their separate bodies touched the ground, and they lost the reassuring, anxious warmth of Garnet.

Sapphire sat there stunned while Ruby jumped to her feet.

"No, no, no, no!" She kicked a box with a little shriek of rage, and the distinct smell of smouldering started to fill the room. Ruby stormed over to the door, leaving a trail of ash and flickers of flame in her wake to check it was locked, and when she turned back she froze in place, anger suddenly ripped away at the sight of Sapphire, unmoving and blankly staring, in front of her.

"Saphy, Sapphire. Are you alright?" She was at the other gem's side in seconds, crouched next to her, a hand on her head. "Sapphire, talk to me. Did that - that didn't hurt you, did it?"

"No, no. I'm alright. But Ruby..." she tailed off briefly, and looked away. Ever so gently, Ruby tilted her face back to look her in the eye. "I don't know how to put us back together again."

***

Time trickled by and nothing they did worked. They held hands, pressed their bodies as close together as possible and wished as best they could. Nothing.

Now, Sapphire sat meditatively inches above the floor, Ruby swinging her legs on a box nearby. "Perhaps if we recreate the circumstances exactly," she suggested tentatively.

Ruby snorted. "You want us to try and kill ourselves? It's not going to work, Saph. It was a one-time thing. Because we were scared,” bitterness curled the last word, twisting it with an alarming amount of self-loathing.

Fear, not love. Sapphire refused to believe that, and she could tell Ruby didn't want to either. "If it was solely based on function, on a need for survival then we would have split again immediately after,” she argued. “And other gems would have had the same experience - we’re at war, we’re hardly the only ones to have come close to shattering. It has to be more than that."

"You want it to be more than that," Ruby said. Her voice was flat and she was avoiding eye contact, but something in the way her body hunched told Sapphire it was a question.

"Of course I do," she said immediately. "And I know it is. Ruby, what we have is more than a necessity. I don't love you because I need you - I need you because I love you."

Ruby shifted. "Then why won't it work?" she asked, voice uncharacteristically soft and forlorn. "Am I - is it me?"

"No! No. We just need to think about this a little, reason it out. There has to be something we're not doing."

"Let me know when you've figured it out," Ruby said.

Hours went by, and Ruby was not helping. She paced and stormed and muttered and complained in the way she did when she was scared and too scared to admit it. Sapphire wished she wouldn’t do that, wished she trusted her enough to be honest about her feelings, but it wasn’t Ruby’s way.

“If you’re not going to help you should leave,” she told her after a while. Ruby froze and turned to look at her wide-eyed, but her hurt wasn’t relevant - she would apologise once they were back together. This was paramount. Unfused as they were, they were in grave danger if they were discovered. “You’re a ruby, you can leave this room without anyone paying you attention.”

“Guess we’re lucky I’m not as special and unique as a sapphire,” she snapped back, and Sapphire repressed a sigh.

“That’s not what I meant, Ruby. But if I’m going to figure this out I can’t afford to be distracted.” It would do Ruby good too, she didn’t like being confined like this. “Go on, I will be here when you come back.”

Ruby left without a backwards glance, and something deep within Sapphire flinched at the sudden silence after the door slammed shut. This was better, no distractions, no noise or Ruby to worry about. Her focus was still as flighty as before, though, and after another hour she gave up, temporarily, and opened her eyes with a slight sigh.

That she was alone did not surprise her, but the sudden loneliness of being alone did. No Ruby meant nobody to talk to, meant for the first time in so long she had nobody but herself. Was nobody but herself. Discomforted by the thought, she shifted back to her feet and paced in the same circles Ruby had paced before, tracing the burn marks in the floor with ice.

It had been foolish to send her away. There wasn’t much thought alone could do in a situation like this, when she couldn’t put her thoughts into practice and try out her theories. And she ached for the loss, wished Ruby was there to mutter and pace and snap in the way she did when she was worried and didn’t know how to show she cared. A large part of her wanted to leave the room and try and find Ruby again, but she didn’t need future vision to know what an absolutely horrible idea that would be. She dipped into it tentatively nonetheless, and flinched physically and mentally away from the sudden knowledge of what would happen if they were found out.

So she waited, and waited, until she started to worry that Ruby wouldn’t come back.

And then she did, and all was good. Past hurt and regretful words temporarily forgotten the moment the door started to slide open. She slipped her sight to the future again, and watched Ruby enter in the future, then the present, to savour and lengthen the moment.

Whatever reaction Ruby had expected to her shamefaced entrance, Sapphire letting out a little sob and running over to throw her arms around her neck had evidently not been it.

“Saph? Are you okay?” Ruby asked immediately, hugging her back tightly. “What happened?” Who do I have to fight, went unsaid but Sapphire knew her well enough to know it was her next thought, and she loved her all the more for it.

“Nothing happened, I missed you.” She broke apart with a sniff, and looked away so she wouldn’t see her cry.

“You’re not mad at me anymore?” Ruby perched on the boxes again, body still tense and flames still flickering.

“I was never mad at you, I was mad at myself. I couldn’t fix this - that’s not your fault, though.” Sapphire paused and scrutinised the other gem closely, then decided to put this broken-apart issue on the back-burner for the time being and focus on something much more immediate and pressing. "I don't think I'm smarter than you, you know."

"You see everything. You know everything."

"I do not - Ruby. I do not know *anything* about any of this. I don't know about war, I don't know about, about love. I don't know what we are or what we are doing. I don't even know what's going to happen next, not really." Sapphire paused and looked away. "The only thing I know is how I feel about you," she said softly, and when she looked back Ruby was staring at her. "You have a point about Binghamite - she didn't know what she was talking about. I was afraid of confronting her. I'm not as brave as you."

"Confrontation is what I was made for. You've never fought before in your life but you stick with me every time we get called out. You saved me from the Crystal Gems, Saph. You're as brave as they come. I should have handed Binghamite better." Ruby kicked the edge of the box and a whiff of smoke puffed out. "I should have been better."

"We should have said something. She was endangering people's lives." Sapphire shook her head, shame biting her every word. She looked down, and only rose her head when she heard the light thump of Ruby's feet hitting the ground.

She looked up to see the other gem walk over to her, and hesitate by her side. Sapphire let her body fall, sitting gently on the ground so Ruby could sit next to her, so she could rest her head on her shoulder and let her eyes drift shut.

"I couldn't do this without you," Sapphire said, her eyes still closed. "Survive, I mean. Fused or not, as long as you're here with me, I know we'll be okay."

"Oh Sapphire..." The next thing Sapphire knew was that Ruby had her arms wrapped around her, holding her tight and close. She was warm and smelled out brimstone and acidic heat, and as much as it was the antithesis to Sapphire’s very being it was everything she wanted. Too warm, too much like fire - all she could do was hold her tighter.

Then the heat rushed up her body in a golden glow, and when she opened her eyes it was them, opening _their_ eyes together.

Garnet stood up; she had work to do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was originally supposed to be two separate chapters, but I couldn't get it to work out, so here we are. Since the last chapter I have: graduated university, moved to a different country (and continent!) and started my first job, but considering the next chapter is about 50% written already, I should actually be updating faster now anyway. Thanks so much for all the kudos and comments - they mean a lot to me!
> 
> Actual plot should start happening next chapter too, so that'll be fun.


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